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Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Necessities of castle life

Latrines are usually called garderobes in historical
fiction, but they had other names – Gang, orgong, cloacum, neccessarium,
reredorter and jake, which is the French form of john or jonny.
The Welsh used tŷ bach (it means a small or private place).
Another popular name was the privy.

Privies varied from a hole in the ground to grand,
purpose built structures – a wooden bench with a hole cut into it, or sometimes
stone seats, inside a small, private space. Lids with handles were used to drop
across the hole, and earth or sand was kept to throw in; often both were required in an
effort to dampen the smells. Henry VIII had sand in his jake at Dover Castle.
Gongscouring was a recognised trade by the 16th century. I don't know about you, but can't help but
shudder at the thought of a stone toilet seat on a frosty January morning...

Usually the latrine cubicle projected out over the castle
walls, and excrement piled up below. Someone (the poor gongscourer) had to go
around at frequent intervals and shift it. Sometimes a chute or shaft inside
the walls drained into a cesspit. In this case, latrines were necessarily
grouped together at one spot in the castle. Rainwater was often directed from
rooftops to the chutes to clean them out. Hampton Court had a communal House of
Easement which was two stories high. “Pissing places” were common and
at Greenwich Palace an effort was made to stop this habit by
whitening the walls and painting red crosses on them in the belief
that no Christian would piss against the Holy Cross.

From the 15th century on, toilet arrangements within
private chambers featured a chair or stool with a pot included below the seat –
a close stool – and the pot would be regularly cleaned out by servants. (I
imagine they emptied the contents over the castle walls! Certainly that
happened at Stirling Castle in the sixteenth century.)

Water was a necessity for life within the castle. Several
wells were included at most residences. The deepest well in England goes down
330 feet, (100 metres) and such depth requires a mechanism to lift the heavy
bucket full of water to the surface. Systems of pulleys and counter balances
were used. Rainwater was also stored in cisterns at roof level and lead pipes
were in use from 1300 onwards.

Fireplaces have been found in English castles as early as
1081, but they were unlike modern fireplaces in that they projected out into
the room they heated, and they did not have a chimney. The smoke escaped through
small holes in the external wall at the back of the fireplace. By the early twelfth century, builders had devised a flue
that carried smoke to an external chimney on the roof. By the fourteenth
century, fireplaces lost their projecting hoods and were recessed into the wall,
usually on a long wall, and often off-centre, so they were closer to the
“higher” end of the hall. In France, the practice was to place the fireplace
behind the dais, thus keeping the noble family warm.

Decoration included abstract patterns cut into the stone in
the twelfth century and heraldry made its appearance in the later middle ages. The decoration of fireplaces
never transferred to internal doorways in English architecture, possibly
because wall hangings and tapestries often obscured doorways. In direct
contrast, the French habit, commonplace by the fifteenth century, was to
extensively decorate door mouldings.

Lighting was difficult in castles. Most light sources were
portable, either suspended as chandeliers of wood, brass or iron. Small wall
niches are found in stone walls of corridors and latrines. Lamps could be
mounted on projecting brackets in smaller chambers, usually to either side of
the fireplace.

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About Jen

Welcome to my blog-cum-website! My stories are often set in Scotland, Dublin or the north of England. I like reading suspenseful novels with the tang of adventure as well as romance, so my books aim to include all three themes. I'm rarely without a camera in my pocket and most of the pics on my blog are mine. My home is in the beautiful Tyne Valley midway between Hexham and Newcastle.